Social Development
Since contact comfort is a part of Social development, I’ve decided to include
other three major theories of social development. Social development pertains
to how individuals interact with others and obtain a self image.
Attachment
This is the first step in social development. There are four dominant theories of
attachment:
Freud's Theory
According to Freud, attachment is derived from bodily needs. That is, a baby becomes
attached to its mother because she satisfies its hunger. However, this theory does not
answer the question of why babies (for example) find other people so interesting.
Bowlby's Theory
Bowlby's two-fold theory is perhaps the dominant one today. First is an infant's innate
need for contact. This feeling is enhanced by a fear of the unfamiliar, which is a primary
source of an infant's anxiety.
Lorenz's Theory
Lorenz came up with the notion of a social critical period, or imprinting, in infants. For
example, the duck following behind its mother is doing so because her behavior was
present during the critical period. On the other hand, if Lorenz himself had been there,
the duck would be following him around. This critical period, however, is rather short,
lasting only for fifteen hours to one day after birth. Below is a graph which illustrates
the amount of imprinting a duckling displays, depending upon the age at which it is
exposed to a duck model to which the duckling could become attached.
Harlow's Theory
Harlow argued that attachment comes from a need for contact comfort. What this means
is that babies require close attention and holding to thrive. Although it has been shown
that infants who are held and snuggled do better than ones that are not, whether or not
this is a basis for attachment is unclear.
Harlow's Rhesus Monkeys
The Freudian concept of early childhood affecting later development was
studied in depth by Harlow, who separated baby rhesus monkeys from
their mothers anywhere from three months to a year following their birth
and put in separate cages.
In the cage are two "mothers," a soft terry cloth mother and a austere
wire mother. Some of the monkeys were fed from the cloth mother and
others from the wire mother. If what Freud said was true, we would
expect the infant monkeys to show attachment to the wire mother if
that's where the food is, even if it less comfortable. However, this was
not the case. Even when the wire mother was the nourishment source,
the baby still clung to the more comfortable terry cloth mother. Even if
the infant monkeys are fed by the wire mother, they wind up spending
more and more time with the cloth mother over time, indicating a need
for contact comfort. Lastly, Harlow introduced unfamiliar items into the
cage with the baby monkeys. Responding to a fear of the unusual, the
monkey would quickly head for the cloth mother, to which it is attached.
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The Effects of Isolation
Harlow found that if the isolate monkeys were returned back into a normal
developmental environment within about two months, they would show no
significant long-term difference. However, if the time of isolation was increased
to three months or more, serious consequences were observed, especially later
on. Many of these monkeys became apathetic, withdrawn, even hostile. Some
bit themselves.
The female isolates were socially incapable of being mothers. After having to
be artificially inseminated, these mothers often wound up killing their babies
either through negligence or "deliberately."
Is there a way to rehabilitate these monkeys? Actually, it is possible to
rehabilitate these monkeys through a form of therapy--by placing a juvenile
isolate monkey with a younger normal monkey. The younger monkey will act as
a quasi-therapist. However, it is key that the normal monkey is younger and not
yet socialized. What winds up happening is that the younger monkey, who does
not know to leave the isolate alone, insists on playing for so long that the
isolate often recovers very well. This, in turn, demonstrates how interaction, in
addition to contact comfort, is important in social development.